Knitting. Yawn.

Ribbon Shell in Blue Sky Alapcas Dyed Cotton:



I cast this on because I was bored and I had the yarn and pattern.

I wasn't sure I'd like it. I kept saying I felt sort of tepid about it, and everyone who saw it said, "Oh, that's gonna be so cute!" (Note that by everyone I actually mean people hanging around the dance studio, since those are the only people I see. Really. We went to a Girl Scout event a couple of days ago, and I was sort of stunned to see so many people who aren't in Irish Dance and probably don't care about Irish Dance. Also, I had just about forgotten everyone's name, and couldn't rely on the Irish Dance choices of Mary, some form of Catherine, or Colleen as being "best guesses".)

I LOVE this yarn. So soft. So nice. I want to pinch its cheek and tickle its tummy.

The pattern? Eh, not so much. It's blocky and dumpy. Too heavy for hot weather, too skimpy for cooler weather. My theory is that everyone's thought that it was cute because of the model's shoes, which I wouldn't be caught dead in. Or maybe the extreme negative ease. I knit the smallest size, and it just doesn't fit me like the picture. I added length to the armholes, as they were way too tight, but I think they're still too tight for use as a vest. I crocheted around the neckline and armholes rather than picking up stitches and knitting -- at the front neckline it's a bit wonky, and needs to be tighter or else finessed with some elastic. The lower edge ribbing could also use some finesse and elastic.

Part of me wants to alter it by revamping the side seams using the serger, just to see what happens. But I'm not quite sure how my serger would handle this fabric. And then I wouldn't be able to reclaim the lovely yarn for a better project.

Wigs and Makeup

Several people have commented on the wigs and makeup. Here's what I know about them. Bear in mind that I'm not an authority, so I may be dead wrong about this.

Curly hair is popular in Irish Dance. The head of our school points out that the curls bounce when you jump, so it looks really bouncy and like you're jumping really high when you've got a head full of curls. If you've been in dance or theater much you know it's all about the illusion, right?

I've read that the long curls became popular during the Shirley Temple era and never really went out of style. You can acheive them by rolling the hair on spikes. You put glop on each strand of hair, roll it up, and leave it for about 24 hours:



There are various ways of doing this. Some people go for fewer spikes, and then separate the big, fat curls out into several smaller curls once it's set. i imagine some people use faster drying hair products.

And a closer look:



As you can imagine, it's not that comfortable to sleep in. It takes at least an hour per head, so if you have multiple kids you will spend multiple hours doing this. It rules out going to a swimming pool to relax and cool off before a competition. If it rains on the way to the feis (competition) you're out of luck. Also, if you go to register for a feis the night before, and it involves walking through an Irish festival, you can pretty much expect drunks to want to poke your child's head in fascination. Plus, girls with short hair are pretty much out of the running for obtaining curls. So, for team competitions, it's easier to get a uniform look by having everyone wear wigs.

Some teams wear bun wigs -- they pull their hair up into a bun, and then just have a little curly hairpiece on that. The winning team in Annabeth's division chose this look. It was very nice and neat. Individual competitors will sometimes wear their hair "soft", which is to say that they don't go for the tight curls. Again, that's harder to do for a team, since we have kids with all sorts of day-to-day hair styles.

I've heard that there are rumbles about rules that young beginners should not be allowed to wear wigs to compete. I happen to disagree with that idea. As long as the curls are popular, you should be able to achieve them however you please. Of course, we could just ditch the entire idea of the curls, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. In the meantime, those in favor of ruling out wigs for young girls are welcome to take their spike-wearing daughters into a crowd of drunks and think about what the anti-wig rule accomplishes.

Currently there are rules in place that a young beginner cannot wear makeup, nor can she wear the glittery solo dresses. Annabeth was allowed to wear makeup for this event since it wasn't a local feis. She isn't allowed to for a regular competition. In the case of our team, the thought was that everyone should match, so one mom did all of the makeup. This was a good idea, since my own personal makeup kit is limited to mascara and chapstick. When they told me to go to the MAC counter to get the lipstick, etc., I was totally blank. Mac? Huh? "M-A-C, MAC, go to a department store like Macy's or Nordstroms." Each dancer on our team had her own lipstick, lipliner, eyeliner, and mascara. The woman in charge of the makeup provided the base, eye shadow and highlighter for Annabeth, having sensed, perhaps, that I was already way outside my have-a-clue zone.



Again, I don't think the winning team in Annabeth's division wore much (or maybe any) makeup. I don't know that they used tanner on their legs -- that's another thing. Young beginners cannot wear tanner in ordinary competition; but for this Annabeth had 3 layers of Boots self-tanner, along with a coating of Rimmel leg makeup, as did everyone else on the team. I was talking about the tanner to my hair guy, and he commented, "I'm Irish, and I know that the Irish don't tan. You're either pale white or else you're red with sunburn." Yeah, well. A lot of Irish dance has sort of diverged from the Irish roots. I mean, look at the solo dresses -- does anyone really walk around looking like that in Ireland? No.

Overall, Irish dance competitions have rules in place to keep the young beginners from going too overboard with the "look". In the beginning they concentrate on the dance. But at special competitions they can go for the look. And, as they get older and compete at higher levels they are welcome to pile on enough wigs, makeup, and bling to look like the drag queen segment of a Gay Pride parade , look like a bunch of escaped circus clowns satisfy their need to dress up whenever they compete.

I Got Tagged I Got Tagged I Got Tagged

Staci at Writing and Living tagged me for a meme, which sent me into flashbacks of playing tag as a child. Was it better to be the kid everyone wanted to tag, or was it better to be the kid who was ignored? Oh, the politics of tag -- how did we survive it all?

She tagged me yesterday, but I thought I'd wait until today to answer because that way I'd have slept more and be more coherent. Great plan, but it didn't pan out since Thalia had dance class until 10:30, so we didn't get home until really late. So don't hold me to any of these answers, 'kay?

What was I doing 10 years ago?
Living in Dover, Delaware, and driving down to the beach every. single. weekend. Thalia was a toddler.

Five snacks I enjoy
Chocolate.
Cookies.
Snapea Crisps.
Toast.
Things involving peppermint.

Five things on my to-do list today
Take one or both kids to Reel/Treble Jig workshop.
Get everyone something to eat for lunch.
Go to Kit movie with Girl Scout troop.
Take Annabeth to ceili workshop.
Pick up Annabeth while dropping off Thalia for her ceili workshop.

Things I would do if I were a Billionaire
Tithe.
Replace the carpet here in the family room.
Hire a cat psychologist for Demon Kitty.
Buy really over-the-top Solo Dresses.

Five jobs I have had
Bookstore clerk.
Library clerk.
Librarian at law firm.
Interior landscaping.
General go-fer at landscaping firm.

Five of my Bad Habits
Cracking my toe knuckles.
Spending hours staring vacuously at the computer screen while surfing the Internet.
Running my fingers through my hair repeatedly, seeing if I can pull any hairs out.
Standing with my knees hyperextended.
Telling myself I'll floss "later".

Five places I have lived
Merrimack, NH
Millington, MD
Elkhart, IN
Evansville, IN
St. Louis, MO

Five random things about me
I have an acute sense of smell.
I think the concept of a grass lawn is overrated.
I like to kick my shoes off.
I can recite an amazing number of advertising jingles from the 1970s.
I'm too tired and vague to answer the part of this about what 5 people I'd like to know more about, probably because I'm nosy and don't want to limit it to 5 people. I think EVERYONE should answer these questions, and none of this namby-pamby "answer if you'd like" business either -- I think you should be forced to answer these questions so I can read what y'all write. After I take a nap, that is.

Our Experience at Nationals

Annabeth's ceili team:



They didn't win their competition, BUT no one burst into tears, fell down, lost a shoe or wig during the performance, threw up, or otherwise fell apart during this very stressful event. So MrV and I considered that a "win". The team that got first place was breathtakingly good. Other teams were also very good. Some teams seemed worse than ours.

The upper 50 percent of the teams are given a recall, and their scores and places (first, second, third, etc.) are posted. The lower 50 percent of the competition are left with the illusion that they were the next best team. For example, 14 teams competed in the group that Annabeth's team was in; the top 7 know exactly how they scored. Teams that scored 8th through 14th place aren't posted, so every team can take heart and believe that really they were team number 8 (as opposed to getting last place, which would be icky). So. As far as I know, our team placed 8th, and we were only a point away from a recall. I love this scoring system.

The competition WAS nerve wracking -- up on top of a big stage in a big ballroom, with 3 judges analyzing every move, not to mention gobs of spectators.

The musicians were FANTASTIC. Gees, I felt like getting up on stage myself when I heard them play. Dean Crouch was on accordion. Someone said John Carey was in the audience (Thalia claimed she saw him walking around the hotel on Friday night, too).

The hotel itself -- Gaylord Opryland -- ummm. Well. I don't think we saw it at its best. The place was packed. Hundreds and hundreds of kids, most on a total adrenaline rush. Long lines for everything. It took an hour to check in. The swimming pools were crowded. Everything was crowded. And did I mention that all these swarms of people were totally wound up about the competition? Yowza, it was like nothing I've ever experienced before. I'm not sure it's something I ever want to experience again. Key learning: don't stay at the hotel that's hosting the event. Because even if it's huge and an amazing place, it's gonna be ... weird.

Anyway, overall it was a positive experience. And guess what we're doing today? Starting a dance workshop! I need to go sneak in a few hours of non-dance life before that starts ....

What's It All About

At this time tomorrow we'll be headed to Nashville so Annabeth can dance this:






This isn't her team, but if you've seen one High Cauled Cap you've seen them all. Sort of. So, picture this with much shorter girls in poodle socks and stiffer dresses.

Must go finish sewing a pair of pants for me to wear, then clean the house and pack.

Shorts

Here at The Home of Catchy Blog Post Titles, I've been sewing. Well, mostly I've been amassing fabric, thinking about sewing, and all that fun part of sewing. But I have been able to produce 2 pairs of shorts for Thalia:



from New Look 6354. Although she wanted them longer than the shorts they show on the pattern. The picture on the front of the pattern envelope is deceiving, by the way -- the inseam of the shorts really isn't very long. Pattern companies tend to make their illustrations very long and lean, have you noticed? Anyway, I drew a new length -- "drew" because I was tracing the pattern onto Pattern Ease. Pattern Ease is handy for messing around with patterns. It's sold at JoAnn's, and goes on sale when the interfacing is on sale, at which time I buy several yards.

Anyway, I made them about knee length. Also, she wanted a drawstring in the waist. After much discussion and pondering-of-options we ended up using double fold bias tape. I sewed it up so it wouldn't unfold (during which the needle fell out of the sewing machine and I put the new one in backwards, which, of course, means it won't sew right, which was about the time I started reconsidering my new plan to make the kids' Irish Dance solo dresses myself since I think you maybe need enough basic skill to put the flipping needle in correctly if you're going to attempt one of those).

The fabric is the linen blend that is on sale at JoAnn's for weeks at a time every spring. I also got enough to make a couple of pairs of capris for myself, but these will be a different pattern which will feature things like a zipper and pockets, which translates into "will take more than an hour to slap together".

Not exciting, groundbreaking sewing, but sometimes we just plod along making practical items for our families, building our skills. And sometimes the skills being built are as mundane as "able to trace patterns quickly" or "always remember to tighten needle screw better so needle doesn't fall out while sewing". Go forth and do likewise.

Attack of the Camera Gremlins

Yesterday I took some pictures of yarn stash to put on Ravelry. Imagine my surprise when I downloaded the photos and discovered that instead of just the 2 I had taken, 60 photos were on the camera card.

Including such gems as



and



plus the profound, not to be missed



Ahem.

I still have more stash photos to take. I'm sort of afraid of what I might find when I download the next batch, as last night the camera gremlins discovered the joy and excitement of nighttime flash photography.

By the way, I'm organizing stash because I've decided to start knitting up all the summer yarn I have. On the way home from the Indy feis we were listening to a book on tape in the car, the sun was shining brightly, I was exhausted, I was about ready to start clawing my eyes out in order to stay awake and also just for something to do, and I thought, "I really need to knit something." So, since I'm not sure what I want to knit, I'm going to cast on for everything, since I figure that will up my odds of actually liking one of the items.

The Myth of the Long, Lazy Summer Day

Yes, the days are long, but they seem to be spent in a frenzy of Getting Stuff Done.

My main occupation this week seems to be ferrying kids back and forth to dance class. It's time for some intense dance practice as we're getting ready for Nationals. At this point we've amassed most of our accoutrements -- MAC lipliner in the appropriate shade, Boots Bronzer in the appropriate shade, the correct wig, the Hullachan shoes (oops, still need a dress bag; add that to the list). Now we come to the home practice, like Getting the Wig On So It Looks Halfway Decent and Applying Bronzer And Seeing If Child Gets a Rash From It. And, of course, the dance classes.

Thalia and I were in the grocery yesterday (sale on popsicles! add that to the list -- we still have freezer room!) and were talking to another adult. The adult asked Thalia how old she is. Thalia replied "12", and I thought to myself, "Why didn't she say 'Under 13?'" because that's the age she is according to the Irish Dance world. And I realized that I was losing my ability to have a normal conversation, since normal people answer age questions with simple numbers like "12". Of course, the adult in question would've understood what was meant by "Under 13" because that woman has a daughter who dances in Open Champion, which is the upper echelon of competition and translates into "we have spent several years and thousands of dollars on this".

So, not only have I lost my ability to have a normal conversation, but it doesn't matter since the people I usually talk to understand this weird "code" I'm using. Isn't this a sign of belonging to a cult?

We had this notion of doing some school over the summer. Thalia is working on Analytical Grammar and Life Of Fred Algebra. Sometimes she also works on Latin. AnnaBeth is working on First Language Lessons 3 and also RightStart C. She is less enthused about the summer school concept. It really doesn't take long, and if we have other obligations during the week (like, say, 10-15 hours of dance classes) we don't bother. We're also continuing our read alouds, which are drawn from Ambleside Online Year 2 plus our continuing slog through Every Little House Book Ever Written Including Prequels And Sequels. I was working on Henle Latin, but it doesn't get done if I'm always driving or messing with wigs, plus, honestly, I don't think there are direct translations into Latin for things like jig, reel, and hornpipe, AND DOES ANYTHING ELSE REALLY MATTER?.

Thalia is also learning how to clicker train a cat, specifically Demon Kitty. Thalia is good at working with animals -- it's really neat to watch her, as a matter of fact. The training has only been going on for a couple of days. We hope to eventually train Demon Kitty to be less demonic. I was reading Karen Pryor's book on clicker training in which she tells about teaching her dog to not attack her cat. And, of course, I was attracted to the notion of "not attack the cat", and decided to see if we could teach Demon Kitty to remain calm around Wimp Cat. Expect blog posts.

We have made it to the pool, and even taken a (non-dancing) friend along. And we've had neighborhood kids hanging around our house (nothing like a freezer full of popsicles to make your house attractive on a hot day). Kids have stayed out late chasing fireflies, and have run through sprinklers. Really, I think the kids are having a great summer. I'm the one who wandering in a daze. But I'm thinking that isn't season-specific behavior on my part.

Indianapolis, I Love Your Feis

Saturday found us at the Indianapolis Convention Center participating in the Indianapolis Feis. It is a very well organized, fun event.

The Convention Center is big enough to hold several stages and still have plenty of room for everyone to spread out, so that's how the feis was arranged. Each stage had some relatively comfy chairs to sit in for viewing the competition, but each stage also had plenty of empty room around it for competitors and families to spread out a blanket and dump all of their flotsam, such as dress bags, shoe bags, wig cases, American Girl dolls dressed in Irish Dance costumes, lucky stuffed animals, etc. etc.

AND, better yet, all of Thalia's dances were on a single stage, and all of AnnaBeth's dances were on a single stage. No moving around! No having to check 2 signs per child to see how each stage was moving! AND, extra special bonus, Thalia and Annabeth's stages were side by side. So I parked our stuff in the area between the 2 stages, and was actually able to watch both girls dance all of their dances. This has never happened before. It was so cool.

Actually, AnnaBeth ended up switching stages. Her stage was still slogging through dance after dance after dance, and another nearby stage was totally empty -- all dances were done. So, in a fit of flexibility and organization, the Powers That Be took a few groups over to the empty stage and had them compete there. PRESTO -- everyone gets done more quickly! Which was probably good, because AnnaBeth was starting to fall apart -- it was a long day. Her wig was starting to hurt her head, she hadn't eaten enough (although there was a nice selection of food vendors, plus we had brought some snacks -- she was simply too nervous and excited to eat).

Thalia placed in all of her dances, which is to say that she is now qualified to dance at Novice level because she got a 1st, 2nd or 3rd in everything she danced plus there were 5 or more competitors in each dance. Here are the goals Thalia had for Irish Dance as of about 2 weeks ago: "I'd like to make it into Novice, and I'd like to place 1st in something." Okay, CHECK THAT OFF! Both have been accomplished. She's worked hard, doing extra conditioning to help her technique. It's paid off.

Plus, super-duper bonus, she was a gracious winner. This was particularly important since AnnaBeth got a 3rd, then a bunch of 4ths and 5ths. AnnaBeth had a bit of a meltdown over that; we have had several talks about how it's pretty good to get 4th place out of 2 dozen competitors, even if 4th place doesn't put you into Novice.

NOTES TO SELF THAT WON'T NECESSARILY MAKE SENSE TO ANYONE ELSE:

The competition started at 9am. First Feis rotated with Beginner 1, neither of which had a hard shoe category. Beginner 2 rotated with Novice and Open. We ended up being there until about 3pm. Next year take chairs to put in camping area, plus something to wear at lunch time.

We will be returning next year. It was a fantastic feis.

The Exploding Cat

Lat night Demon Kitty was staring out the sliding glass door. I went over to pick her up, and she exploded into a ball of fur and claws and yowling. I screamed. I bled. I threw her in the basement.

This morning she was her usual loving, cute, cuddly self.

We think she was concentrating so much on something outside the door (probably our other cat) that she was totally taken by surprise when i touched her. And now I have scratches down the side of my face and also my arm. I also have blood splashed on the top I was wearing (the kids had a piano recital earlier in the evening, so I was sort of dressed up). I always end up with blood dripped on my favorite tops. Sigh.

I also have a prescription for anti-anxiety drugs for Demon Kitty. We're hoping they "take the edge off", as the vet says.

Anyway, that pretty much took my mind off of everything else. And there's a lot of "everything else" these days. The car was dying, but has revived after tender ministrations (and several one-car-family days). We seem to be unable to get the proper shoes in the proper size and the proper wig for Annabeth's Big Dance Competition coming up in just a few more weeks. It's raining constantly, meaning the water table has risen to the point that sump pumps that NEVER run are merrily pumping water, and those of us without sump pumps have plans to install one soon. Sometimes the storms feature bonus tornado warnings, which adds to the excitement. And can you believe how hot it is for the beginning of June? Yowza, it feels more like July or August.

Long Weekend

Or, "what we did on Memorial Day vacation":

I went to the library to get books on cat psychology (still dealing with Demon Kitty, who must be separated from Wimpy Cat at all times). While there I happened to pick up Carolyn Jessop's book, Escape, about her life in the FLDS. Brought it home and read it obsessively. Finished it with a feeling of, "okay, THAT'S out of the way." I rarely read popular books, so it will probably be a long time before I read something else trendy.

We all went to see Prince Caspian. The theater was fairly empty, which was good since we had to whisper about what was in the book or not. Some of us also had to giggle quite a bit about the whole Caspian-Susan relationship (which is NOT in the book).

MrV and Thalia painted Thalia's room. MrV also put up another shelf in Annabeth's closet. And cleaned out the icky gutters way way up high.

Took Annabeth to a birthday party. In the meantime, bought one of those firepit thingies that let you have a fire on your porch. Picked up Annabeth from party, stayed up very late having a fire on porch. Ignored inserted literature stating that we would likely die if we ate food cooked on firepit thingy, and recklessly toasted marshmallows.

Endured an amazing amount of rain. When you walk through our yard the mud about sucks your feet off. A colony of ants decided our house would be drier and better to live in. We found the point where they're coming in on the inside of the house, but can't find it on the outside -- I imagine it's under the porch somewhere. In the meantime, I've closed up their inside doorway with Borax. Yes, they can dig through, but it will kill them over time.

I managed to get some sewing done, this time on a pair of capri pants. Each change of season brings a crisis in my wardrobe. Apparently sometime between last summer and now I went through my clothing and threw out all my ugliest capri pants; this left me with pretty much nothing to wear. Oops. I'm sure at the time I had visions of shopping for new. Hah. You'd think I'd know better by now -- I hate to shop. Anyway, the fly front zipper is in, and I need to make belt loops, attach the waistband, and hem them. Which I should be doing now, come to think of it ....

Bronze Award Project

Thalia decided to earn her Bronze Award while in Junior Girl Scouts this year. The Bronze Award is the highest award given to a Junior Scout.

To earn it she needed to earn a Sign, a leadership award, and 2 badges related to her project. She then needed to spend 15 hours on a project that would benefit the community.

Thalia decided to earn the Sign of the Star, mostly because it was fairly easy to earn solo (the Bronze Award and Signs are often earned as a troop).

She had earned the Junior Aid award back in Ohio when she helped run a Brownie meeting.

The two badges she earned were Pet Care, and Yarn and Fabric Arts.

Then she was ready to start her project -- making blankets for cats in shelters. She would've preferred to actually work directly with the animals, but is too young to do so. I thought this was sort of creative in that she came up with a way to do something for the animals in spite of her youth.

She ended up making fleece blankets -- the kind that take 2 layers of fleece with fringes tied together. The shelter specified that they would like the blankets to be 14 inches square. Frankly, this was the toughest part of the entire project -- getting the specifications for the blankets. During this part of the project Thalia learned that nonprofit organizations are often understaffed and may not return phone calls until you call them several times.



We had the fleece with multi-colored cats on it already (I had bought it when Thalia was a toddler, thinking I would make a jacket for her). We waited for a sale at JoAnn's to get some solids for $2.99 per yard, and also found some large pieces for cheap in the remnant bin. We're all about the cheap materials here.

She ended up making 14 blankets. Our cats tested them out, and thought they were great. For the record, after we finally got the cats off of them she washed the blankets before actually taking them to the shelter.

At the end of the year her troop had a candle ceremony for the 3 girls who had earned their Bronze Award. And the leader mentioned it, then, in the Court of Awards that was held jointly with the Brownies and Cadettes -- the leader thinks Girl Scouts needs to make more of a fuss about the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Awards. But, hey, if we started counting the ways Girl Scouts could be better we'd be here all day, right? So let's be happy we had a nice troop in a decent Council.

Thalia has now officially bridged to Cadettes, so we're poised to start on the Silver Award. Yeehaw. Or maybe "aaack" would be more appropriate. I feel like I just figured out how to "do" Juniors, and now it all changes.

Busy Times

We've had house guests. So that's part of the reason for the break in blogging.

Also, we got a new cat a few weeks ago. After spending several weeks wrapping us around her little paw, when she was sure of our adoration, she revealed her true identity of Demon Kitty. She attacked our other cat. Viciously. So, much time lately has been spent toting cats to the vet. Older cat now gets ointment in his eye and antibiotics. Demon Kitty has been checked out for any physical problems -- there are none, by the way, so that means she has no excuse for her behavior.

In Which I Find Something Worthwhile About Prima Latina

I have often moaned and complained about Latina Christiana and Prima Latina, all volumes of which we tossed out in favor of other Latin programs that didn't cause such weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

BUT

Thalia's choir was singing in a concert. And it was pretty cool when AnnaBeth and I recognized the song:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabbaoth.
Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria Tua.
Hosanna in excelsis.
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Hosanna in excelsis.

We sort of giggled and chanted along quietly.

Afterwards I said something to Thalia about how handy it was that she already knew the words to that one.

"Yeah, and we'd even learned the correct pronunciation.' It was pretty apparent from the tone of her voice that this did NOT mean that she had any desire whatsoever to touch those books again. Additionally, she's into classical pronunciation now, thank you very much.

But, hey, at least all those weeks of Prima Latina weren't a total waste.

Trivia

So far today I've gotten up early, had some Green Magma to drink, then scrubbed the kitchen floor while listening to classical music.

After that I ate pecan shortbread chocolate chunk cookies, fried bacon, ate the bacon, fried bread in the bacon grease, then ate that, all while mindlessly reading Internet forums.

Which way will the day go -- back on track for the healthy, productive lifestyle? Or diving further into the depths of junk food and drivel?

Ruffles, and Red, White and Blue

AnnaBeth's choir director asked that they wear red, white and blue to their next performance. Well, okay. Except that the only red clothing she has is Christmas related, and it's (finally) too warm for that sort of thing. And the only blue she has is denim, which really isn't so much "blue" as it is "denim".

So we decided to make a new skirt. And I figured that AnnaBeth wanted something a little flouncier than an A-line or simple gathered skirt. After much consultation she decided she liked Ottobre 3/2006 #35, which is an extravaganza of ruffles. She thought perhaps we should make some ruffles blue and some red, but I thought it might be nice to find some printed fabric.

A trip to JoAnn's yielded patriotic Hello Kitty (who knew?), as well as some white fabric with stars sprinkled across it.

This is what happens when you cross a need for red, white, and blue with a need for lots of frills:




I had purchased some red ribbon to sew on some of the outer, blue ruffles, but AnnaBeth decided against that. I think she was right, since that would've added too much weight to those ruffles.

This really weighs a ton -- it's got 2 layers. The under skirt is supposed to be white batiste with 2 frills on the bottom. I used white for the upper part, but the starry fabric for the frills. I hemmed the frills with my serger set for a narrow rolled hem, one using red thread and the other using blue. It came out looking sort of like ribbons:





That white fabric was stuffed in a drawer with a price tag of 47 cents per yard. I think it originally belonged to my mother-in-law's mother, who had purchased it way back when. You know, back before we called it "stash" and instead called it "sort of odd hoarding behavior, possibly brought on by surviving the Great Depression".

I'd thought I was being clever by ignoring Ottobre's directions about the size of the elastic in the waist -- I thought they wanted it way too small. But, no, they were right -- the skirt is so heavy that it drags right down onto her hips. But it seems to work in spite of my larger elastic.

I finished it this morning. She's worn in non-stop today. I hope it lasts until her performance, and doesn't end up mud caked or ripped by then.

"Stitch It Together" Try-It for Brownies

Honestly, this would've been an easier Try-It for us to do at home, but that can't be said for everyone in AnnaBeth's Brownie troop. So, it ended up as a troop project. The girls made doll quilts.

We were instructed to get fabric and cut out 6 squares of 8" by 8", and a backing of 16" by 24" (yes, quick math show that this isn't really correct, as you have seam allowances, but I guess the woman in charge decided it was the easiest way to explain it to everyone, or maybe she didn't feel like doing the math herself -- I never know in these situations). We also purchased some buttons.

Those who were unable to purchase their own fabric had some provided for them.

We happened into a sale at JoAnn's on quilting fabric and buttons.




(Picture is yellow because it was taken on the dining room table in winter.)

At the meetings the girls sewed on the buttons on one square (task #2, Button Collage) and embroidered designs on another square or 2 (task #3, Embroidery). Did I mention that there are about 20 girls in our troop? So, that's 20 kids in 1st through 3rd grade who are trying to figure out how to sew on buttons and how to embroider (and we didn't have hoops, which added to the challenge). And, yeah, we have heavy parental involvement, but an amazing number of the parents have little idea how to sew on a button or how to embroider. It was ... intense. The troop provided the needles, thrjead, scissors, and embroidery floss (I think the floss was donated by someone who had gobs of DMC that the labels had fallen off of; actually, AnnaBeth took some of our from home so she knew she had a color she liked).

After decorating some of the squares with buttons and embroidery, the girls brought all 6 squares to the sewing machines. What sewing machines? Why, the ones lugged in by some of the moms. I took my old Viking, which is absolutely awesome for this task since it has a "low gear" in which you CANNOT sew quickly no matter how much you stomp on the pedal (another plus is its nice carrying case, but a minus is that it weighs about as much as my car). Working closely with the sewing machine mavens, each girl sewed together at least some of her squares. Well, if she wanted to. If she was really timid, she was welcome to just watch while being talked through what was going on. At least, the kids who were with me got talked through it -- my experience teaching Thalia and AnnaBeth to sew merged with my years of library reference work teaching university freshmen how to use the online card catalog, and I was in the ZONE about explaining what we were doing and why. (task #6, Patch It All Together) The seams were ironed flat by the adults; someone had brought in an iron, and a little ironing station was set up.

The troop provided batting. The completed 6 squares were laid on top of the batting and the backing, and sewn together (sometimes by Brownies, sometimes not) leaving a gap for turning. All quilts were turned, and the girls were given needles and thread to whip the gap closed (task #5, Sew What?)

Okay, admittedly some of these tasks aren't spot on how they're written in the Try-It book, but we took at least 3 meetings to do this, and the kids really did work quite a bit on stitching skills.




A finished product.

Thalia thought it was such a cool concept that she got some fabric to make one, too.

And One Finished for Me

Long ago I became interested in A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver Van DeMille. I found the online discussion of the book tantalizing. A new look at homeschooling! Woohoo! It sounded like it was changing lives.

But, of course, I was too cheap to actually purchase a copy of the book. I found out what I could about the contents and the author, and had to be satisfied with that.

A few weeks ago I happened to look up Thomas Jefferson Education in our library's catalog. Hey, they had it! I placed a hold, and eagerly awaited its arrival.

And last week it finally came! And I got to read it! And it was ... really mediocre. Sigh. All my hopes for revolutionary thought were dashed. It was nothing new, packaged in a book that seemed like a cross between an extremely long magazine article, and a brochure for George Wythe College, which is the non-accredited school the author runs.

So. Set a good example for your kids by studying and learning new things. Classics are good. not that he ever defines what he means by classics. Mentors are good. Apparently we should all strive to become statesmen, although I don't recall that he ever explained what that meant, either. George Wythe College is (according to DeMille) a sparkling example of higher education.

I did get a kick out of this quote from page 125: "We are inundated with information, but most of it does us very little good." Umm, yep, that pretty much sums up my thoughts on this book.

Another One Bites the Dust

I will never again teach First Language Lessons.

It's done. Finished. History.



Two kids worth of use, and it's looking rather battered. The protective coating is peeling right off of the cover. It has that look that a book gets when it's pulled off and replaced on a shelf a couple hundred times.

I'll admit that it's been incredibly boring at times. For some reason, it didn't seem quite so bad the second time through, though. Perhaps that's because I knew what to expect. Perhaps it's because I didn't have a toddler demanding my attention, leaving me feeling frazzled about getting through all the lessons in the shortest time possible.

We added Montessori grammar games. We made the chants into hand clap games and dances. We skipped lessons, particularly at the beginning. We sang the poems for which we knew a tune (All Things Beautiful, for example).

Overall, I've decided that I like slightly scripted lessons. They're a nice change of pace. When I'm feeling crummy I can follow the script, but when I'm perky I can go off in my own direction.

For the record, I think the book's cover picture is weird. I'll not be missing that at all.

Homeschool Snapshot

MATH

Thalia decided she needed to work on fractions, percents, and decimals before moving into a pre-Algebra program. We got the Key to. ... series for her to work on, and she's been going through the books on her own. She likes the incremental pace; I think she also gets a kick out of how easy some of it is. I don't think she's learning anything new, but she's getting plenty of practice on concepts. RightStart was great on explanations, and then gave just a few interesting problems to work on -- Thalia apparently needed gobs of practice problems, which she's getting now.

In the meantime, I've been looking over pre-Algebra programs, and have decided that some of the main features of them are working on fractions, decimals, and percents, and making sure those are solid before moving on to Algebra. I think we'll plunge into Algebra once she's done with these books.

AnnaBeth continues in RightStart C. We are at about lesson 95. She's doing well with memorizing multiplication tables. Not that RightStart calls it that -- at this point she's just learning to skip count really, really quickly, according to the program. She's working on 4 digit subtraction, which seems to be going smoothly.

Latin

Thalia continues with Latin for Children, which she adores. She eagerly awaits Greek for Children, convinced that the people at Classical Academic Press will put together the Best Program Ever since they have the magic touch in language programs.

AnnaBeth was doing Prima Latina, but ... oh, lordy, those Memoria Press language programs just kill me. I dread getting out the book. And AnnaBeth wasn't exactly pushing for it. At first she was so eager to learn Latin that she insisted, and I just sort of went along with her enthusiasm. But bit by bit that enthusiasm eroded with the onslaught of B.O.R.I.N.G. lessons. Latin seems to be on hold for this child for a few more weeks.

Foreign Language

Thalia also continues in Rosetta Stone Spanish. She's bored with it. I've been looking for something else to mix it with, but so far haven't found anything that seems appropriate. What she'd really like if Spanish for Children by Classical Academic Press, since she considers them the source of all Perfect Language Programs. Maybe we'll take a look at it when it's published.

AnnaBeth is taking another try at French. A couple of years ago we tried The Easy French. Since she didn't yet know how to read we simply listened to the tapes. Not much stuck, frankly. We just started the program again, this time with reading and writing. AnnaBeth is excited about this. I'll be interested to see how well we learn to read French with the little Spalding-type phonogram cards they provide.

Reading and Writing

We just got our copy of Lightning Literature 7 last week, and Thalia immediately started in. I got a copy of the Harold Bloom's book Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children from the library so she could read Riki Tiki Tavi. She keeps taking the book and wandering off with it, reading other things. Sheesh, that child loves to read. She also likes Lightning Lit, it seems. I think she likes having a mental checklist of what all needs to be covered, and being able to see how she's progressing; having a workbook provides that.

Analytical Grammar is on order. Right now she's not doing any other grammar program; way back when we dumped Rod and Staff 5th grade and never replaced it with anything. It's time to focus on grammar again. Simply doing dictation and looking up rules as needed really didn't seem to help with usage rules, either. I think Analytical Grammar gets into some usage. I hope so. We'll see.

In the meantime, AnnaBeth is 4 lessons away from completing First Language Lessons. She's very excited. We already have a copy of the Level 3 book and workbook ready to start next week. And she's very excited about that, too. Yes, both my kids are excited that their new programs contain workbooks.

AnnaBeth also is working on cursive in the Handwriting Without Tears workbook, which she really enjoys. She does this pretty much on her own. Every so often I'm supposed to come up with a list of words for her to write in cursive. That's pretty much the extent of my involvement.

No one works on spelling on a regular basis.

We are in the final week of Ambleside Year 1, which we've been using for read alouds. We continue to slog through all of the LIttle House books. We are currently in The Long Winter, with its continuous blizzards and continuous discussion of whether or not the train can make it through the Tracy Cut. Why did these people ever move from The Big Woods? Life was good back in The Big Woods; they should've stayed there.

Science

Science is a motley assortment of classes at the Science Center, the zoo, and Girl Scout badge work. We're trying to come up with something more systematic for next year for Thalia. She'll be too old for Science Center classes, and the Cadette Interest Projects aren't so science-y (insert snide comment here about how Girl Scouts comes up with what to put in their books -- use your imagination). So. Middle School science -- the bane of so many homeschoolers. Umm. Well. Ahem. Moving on.

History

Let's just call our history program "interest led". "Erratic" would also be a good word to use. Thalia is interested in Greeks and Vikings. AnnaBeth is interested in Egyptians. So sometimes we read about these things, or listen to audio books, or watch programs about them. And sometimes we don't. Okay, moving on.

Oh! Wait! Those Ambleside readings have a bunch of history! Okay, then, we've been doing history of Britain, as well as some Vikings and some early Christian church.

Other Stuff

Piano. We have an excellent piano teacher. The kids are learning so much from her. Heck, I am learning so much from her.

Phys Ed. Last week feature workshops with John Carey. Who'd've thought we'd be doing workshops with a World Champion who starred in Lord of the Dance. Irish Dance is so weird. AnnaBeth also continues to work her way through the YMCA swimming program.

Hmm, I think that's what we do for homeschool these days. It's hard to say -- the homeschool stuff is so embedded in life that you can't really say "okay this is school" and "this over here is just living our lives". But these are the things I keep track of in our notebooks in order to comply with Missouri homeschool law.